Viewing changes to project plans (i.e. versioning of task lists)

[SaraJa]

Hi All, We are working on monitoring changes to our project plans (i.e. if we need to rush something deleting tasks that are no longer necessary, or if there is a shift in project objectives, or etc). Ideally we would like to create an audit trail for our project plans, such that we would be able to view how the schedule has changed over time. We were hoping to use baselines to do this but I'm not sure this is the right approach. I would ideally want to open a baseline and be able to see the exact project plan (i.e. task list) at that particular point in time. If this is possible, great (please let me know how :) )! Otherwise, does anyone know of a way to save and view different iterations of project plans? Thank you! Sara

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Sara. Since it's Task/Timeline information (vs Custom Data changes) that you're wanting to audit over time, I think that you're on the right track using Baselines. If (for example) you took a baseline every Friday of every Current project (and set that latest baseline to "default"...that part is important), you could then do a couple of interesting things. First, when looking at a Project using the Legacy Gantt View, you could can turn baselines "on" to visually compare the baselines against the planned and (optionally) projected dates to see the slip; and "toggle" between different baselines by selecting them from the drop down, essentially scrolling back in time. Second, you can create a report on Baseline Tasks to show similar information in a grid format on a report for whatever filter or prompt you wish (e.g. certain tasks, certain projects, etc.) so you can more easily focus and quantify the variances. By design, the report uses (only) the Basline Tasks on the Baseline that is (currently) marked using the "default" Baseline setting I mentioned. Once you've tried these approaches to confirm that they're of value, you could also consider automating the baselines using our Create Baselines , which you can run ad-hoc (e.g "create a basline for ALL my current projects"), or scheduled (e.g. same idea, but "Friday at noon"). Regards, Doug

[SaraJa]

Hi Doug, Thanks for responding so quickly. I have tried both methods. 1) Legacy Gantt - this is helpful in some ways both not in others. I have created a test baseline project and labeled the tasks sequentially (see screenshot). It does show added tasks (I added task 3.5) and I can determine when they were added by scrolling through the different baselines in the drop down, but it does not show deleted tasks (I deleted task 2). This is important to us so we can see which tasks may have been removed from a project plan and when. This will allow us to understand the impact if necessary during project post-mortem (we can log these at the time they are deleted in the updates field but doesn't provide us with a direct indication that they have been deleted unless we know to look for it in updates). 2) Baseline Report - I ran a baseline report and it shows expected completion date as the same for all baselines, which should not be the case. Perhaps I set up the report incorrectly (see screenshot). Do you have an idea on what could be happening. If you or anyone else has ideas on this let me know! Thanks again.

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Good points, Sara. On the first, one option could be to remove the ability to delete Tasks (in favor of just marking them as complete, with zero hours), which would help avoid the where-did-it-go scenario. On the second, the sample report looks to be at a higher level than I was meaning -- is it possible you did a "Baseline" report, vs "Baseline Task"? Regards, Doug

[SaraJa]

Hi Doug, Thanks again for your response. Very helpful! It appears I was using the incorrect report. The Baseline Task report is just what I was looking for. I also like your idea of zeroing out the hours/duration of tasks that are no longer required. In case anyone is following this discussion, what I have done is created a custom status for tasks called "Not Required", such that we can change the status of the task if it is no longer needed in our project plan (as well as zeroing out the duration of the task). Now when viewing the report it is very clear which tasks have been "deleted" and if I group the Baseline Task Report by Baseline Name, it shows when tasks may have been added. Screenshot attached here. The only issue I have remaining is that it shows the current status of the task for all baselines (not what the status of that task was when the baseline was created). To combat this, we will probably just make a note in the update field of the task saying the date it was removed from the project plan and why. I have created a column in the Baseline Task report to show the last note update, but unfortunately the update is not appearing in the report. The code I used below. If anyone has thoughts on why the note is not appearing, I would appreciate your insight. Thank you! displayname= linkedname=lastNote namekey=view.relatedcolumn namekeyargkey.0=lastNote namekeyargkey.1=noteText querysort=lastNote:noteText textmode=true valuefield=lastNote:noteText valueformat=HTML